To share your story with us, email digitalmedia@collingwoodfc.com.au and tell your tale of following Collingwood from abroad.
First off, allow me to thank you very much for asking about being a Collingwood Magpie fan in the U.S.
I am an American, not an Australian. I had never heard of Australian Rules football until I accidentally stumbled onto the start of a game that was broadcast live on ESPN during the late 1980s. I loved it from the start. I remember the goal umpires were still wearing the white coats, which I thought looked rather old-fashioned even at the time.
Two things about the game immediately caught my attention:
1) Once the ball is in play it can remain so for minutes at a time unlike American football where every little thing causes to clock to stop. That drives me crazy!
2) Kicking a goal is easier than running a touchdown so Australian Rules football is a high scoring game.
I loved seeing the endless ways the goals can be kicked, from any angle and even while the ball is rolling on the ground! This was long before we had the Internet so I could not simply learn more about the sport within five minutes. I confess I lost contact with footy after seeing two games on ESPN.
In 2010 I rediscovered footy when our local public TV station started showing games and highlight programs during prime time every week on the MHz Worldview network. I started watching every week and really started to get the hang of the rules of the games, the various teams, players' names, the stadiums, the scores and the ladder. I read the book "Aussie Rules For Dummies" by Jim Main. I had become a fan.
I even managed to get a Sherrin football from an American who worked for a year in Australia and a Magpies 2010 Premiership team photo t-shirt by mail. That year the team that most caught my attention was the Collingwood Magpies!
That year would be the first time I would see a Grand Final on TV, spread out over two Saturdays owing to a draw with St Kilda during the first game. ESPN2 had started showing AFL games again in 2009 so I managed to see all five games they broadcast live including the two Grand Final matches.
In 2011 I had the thrill of seeing the Magpies finish the year undefeated by all but the Geelong Cats. Both MHz Worldview and ESPN2 together broadcast as many as two games per week plus highlight shows much to my great delight.
At the start of the 2012 season, it started to become difficult to watch AFL games on U.S. television. For starters, no more games were shown on ESPN, neither on ESPN2 on cable TV or the three games per week streamed on espn3.com like the year before. Then by July (this month), MHz Worldview cancelled their matches and highlights reportedly due to funding cuts from the government of Virginia, the State where they are located.
There are two other channels on cable TV showing two games weekly, both showing the same games. They are Fox Soccer Plus and FUEL. Both are sports channels run by the Fox network. This is certainly better than no TV coverage, but both channels require monthly subscription fees. This drastically reduces the opportunities for casual viewers to discover this great sport like I did in the 1980s.
American fans like myself are sometimes willing and able to pay for specialist cable channels like these or the Internet streaming of footy games on livesport.tv.
I can't help but think that the AFL and great teams like the Collingwood Magpies would be able to recruit new fans in the U.S if AFL games are broadcast weekly during a reasonable time slot on a cable TV channel that most Americans receive without having to pay an extra monthly fee.
I look forward to expanded American television coverage of the Australian Football League so more of my fellow Yanks will know about the great winning skills of the Collingwood Magpies!
In the meantime, I have the 2012 Collingwood Magpies wall calendar hanging on the wall at my desk at work, which is a conversation starter with my co-workers.
Mark Dillman
"Daddy-o Dilly"
